WCCT 10 Announcement

The WCCT 10 has been announced in memorial of the late Uri Avner. The announcement is available on the website of the WFCC:
http://www.wfcc.ch/10th-wcct-announcement/
http://www.wfcc.ch/competitions/composing/10-wcct/

Yours Truly hopes to be able to participate again. An article on section D will be written for eg with several more studies.

The themes unfortunately can't be copied easily without breaking their markup, resulting in ugly empty lines and other issues. For the full announcement, including regulations and examples, please visit the website given above and download/open the PDF document.

An incredible move

We would like to draw attention to the game of Denis Khismatullin vs. Pavel Eljanov, played on 6 March 2015 in the European Individual Championship in Israel. After 43 moves, the following position was reached:

 White to move

There are five possible moves for White: 44.Ra1, 44.Re1, 44.f4+, 44.h4+ and 44.Qe7+. Let us analyze them.

• 44.Ra1 Rf6 45.f4+ Kh4 46.Qh6+ Kg3 47.Qg5+ Kh2 48.Q:f6 Qe2 mate (or 48.Qg4 h5 49.Qf3 Q:c6 or even stronger 49.-h4! and Black wins).
• 44.Re1 Rf6 45.f4+ Kh4 46.Qh6+ Kg3 47.Qg5+ Kh2 48.c7 Rc6! and Black wins, or 48.Q:f7 Q:g2 mate.
• 44.f4+ Kh4 45.Q:d6 Q:d1+ 46.Kf2 Qe2+ 47.Kg1 Q:e3+ 48.Kh2 Qg3+ 49.Kg1 Qe1+ 50.Kh2 leads to perpetual check.
• 44.h4+ Kh5 45.g4+ K:g4 leaves White in a difficult situation, where 46.Q:f7!! Q:d1+ 47.Kg2 leads to a draw, according to the computer.
• 44.Qe7+ Rf6 45.f4+ Kh6 46.Qf8+ Kh5 is dangerous for White, although here also 47.Kg1!! draws, according to the computer.

It seems obvious that White should play 44.f4+ with a rather easy draw then. Of course, there is no possible way to win.

It did not matter that day. Khismatullin found an impossible way to win.
44.Kg1!!
Wait, what? The rook hangs with check, Black has an incredible passed pawn, and he still is lost? Indeed. The real depth of the trouble can be seen by the computer giving 44.-Rd5(!!) and 44.-Q:c6 as the best suggestions, both of which leave White with a big advantage but Black could fight for a draw. It really is difficult to give a question mark to the next move, although it objectively deserves one.
44.-Q:d1+?
This loses soon, but it is difficult to see why. Most likely Black assumed Khismatullin was going for a draw in style.
45.Kh2 R:c6 46.Qe7+ Kh6 47.Qf8+ Kg5
With a draw, after all, Eljanov might have thought.
 48.Q:f7!!

 Black to move

Black has every advantage in this position - active pieces, a rook up, a dangerous passed pawn - except one: The king's security. And as unfair as it is, no matter how good you have played and how many advantages you collected: if you are checkmated, you lose.

And Black will be checkmated sooner or later. The game lasted for another nine moves, which will be given without further comment.

An incredible position we have in this diagram, great play by Khismatullin!

48.-Rf6 49.f4+ Kh6 50.Q:f6 Qe2 51.Qf8+ Kh5 52.Qg7! h6 53.Qe5+ Kh4 54.Qf6+ Kh5 55.f5! g:f5 56.Q:f5+ Kh4 57.Qg6 and Black gave up.

As a postscriptum it should be added that both did not take a top rank. The tournament was won by Jewgeni Najer, in front of David Navara and Mateusz Bartel. If there was a beauty prize, however, this 44.Kg1 would have deserved it.

Thanks to fellow historian Wolfgang Pieper (Osnabrück) for telling me about the game!

Warning against Europa Rochade

We must warn against the Europa Rochade, as it violates the codex of chess compositions, article 21 on pages 59 and 65 of the March 2015 issue by not naming the sources of the problems and studies presented.


UPDATE, 1 May 2015: The Europa Rochade now shows author's names everywhere, so that is enough of a win for us.